A Bit of a Freak
by Hekasha
Summary: Yet another rendition of Dennis Rafkin's life, boys and girls! A little different and a little bit of the same. Please R&R!
1. The Beginning of the End

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize from the 13 Ghosts movie nor am I making any profit from the writing of this fanfic.

A/N: Woohoo, kids! Yet another story of Dennis Rafkin's life! I know this is a pretty tired subject, but I thought I had to express my thoughts on it. Mine starts when Dennis gets the job offer from Cyrus and will, hopefully, go all the way until Dennis' death. It's a story that needs to be told…even if it has been dozens of times already in many different ways, but there we are. So here's my version, and if you aren't already tired of reading these, then by all means enjoy!

-Hekasha

Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End

Dennis Rafkin was not a happy camper.

"What do you mean, fired?" he said, trying to remain calm. This couldn't be happening. This latest job at the library was really working for him. He barely had to touch or come in contact with anybody, he made a decent wage, and, best of all, there were no ghosts in the library. 

Gina Davis, the library's director, looked across her pine desk at him, her graying blonde hair pulled into a knot at the back of her head and her caked eye makeup making her face look like a death mask. The wide window behind her looked out over a small park across the street, where rain was falling; had been falling all day. Water oozed down the glass, casting strange shadows over the room and making everything dark and dreary looking.

"Mr. Rafkin," Gina said, not unkindly, "I believe that you're aware of how much of a disturbance you caused the other day. That's the third time in as many months that you've broken down like that. I'm sorry, but we have a very strict standard here, and we can't have our employees going into fits every few weeks for no apparent reason. I understand that you're sick, Mr. Rafkin, but I'm afraid we no longer have a place for you here. If I may make a suggestion, perhaps it would be wise for you to seek some professional help about this…"

Dennis fought the urge to close his eyes and groan. See, that was the thing. In order to avoid the stares and eye-rolls of people around him, he never told anyone that he was psychic. It sounded too melodramatic; nobody would believe him. Instead, he simply told his employers and coworkers that he had a mild case of epilepsy, explaining that the migraine medication he carried around with him helped him treat it. That was, of course, a far cry from the truth. He wasn't epileptic, he wasn't sick. He went into fits only when he touched another person, felt their life's pain pouring into him in one giant, migraine-inducing head rush. Or, of course, whenever a ghost was present. He had figured this one out only a few years ago, when he had seen a show on the Discovery Channel about so-called psychics and how they claim to see ghosts around them in visions. He had known that was the answer to his 'condition', as people had always called it, the reason he sometimes went into seizures even when he hadn't touched anyone. And his 'condition' was about to lose him his fifth job in three years. Realizing he was supposed to be politely listening to Gina's 'advice', Dennis tuned back into reality; something he was starting to have a harder and harder time discerning from his visions.

"…are many places that can help you to take control of your life if you really work hard at it…"

Never mind, she was still going. Dennis stared past her out the window, watching blurry shapes zip by on the street. It was getting worse. His gift, his curse, whatever it was. It was getting worse, more intense. As soon as he stepped out of his apartment in the morning, he was assaulted by ghosts, by visions of another person's pain and suffering. He had started to think of the library as his safe place, where nothing could touch him. Except for a few very nosy customers. Just the other day, a teenage girl had wandered into the library, presumably doing research for a school project. Upon sighting him, she had apparently forgotten her studies and had followed him around, pestering him. The kid had been a first-rate slut, and Dennis had politely yet firmly ignored her advances. But when she had finally gotten impatient and reached out to grab his arm…all Hell had broken lose. 

He had been treated to a life history of a complete stranger, had seen her childhood, her abusive parents, her many boyfriends that had led to her lack of self-respect. He would have felt sorry for her, and had afterwards. But at the time he had been busy having a mental breakdown. He had screamed, falling to the floor, causing customers and coworkers to stare at him in alarm. Some approached him, trying to help, but he had screamed at them to stay away. The whole time, the girl had stood there with wide eyes, wondering what she had done wrong. He had yelled at her, called her a dumb slut, to get out of his sight. He did that sometimes, when the pain was so intense he had to blame it on the sender, even though they had no idea what they had done or why he was like he was. Needless to say that was why he was in Gina's office right now, getting fired.

"…think you can get better, if you really try."

Finally, she was done. Gina really was a nice lady, but Dennis didn't have the patience for this right now. He was thinking about leaving the building, dreading going out on the street where he was vulnerable, where so many people and spirits were waiting to pounce on him, Dennis the psychic. Dennis the freak.

He forced a smile. "Thanks," he said. It didn't even seem genuine to him, no matter how he tried. So without another word, he left the office and gathered his things from downstairs in the employees' lounge. He slouched into his coat, thankful that the place was vacant of any sickly sweet, sympathetic coworkers. He wasn't really friends with any of them, mostly because he couldn't let them touch him in any way, and keeping up the act of being 'sick' for more than the required time around people was grating. And there was no way he could tell anybody what was really wrong with him. They wouldn't believe him. Nobody believed him. And why would they? They didn't get head-splitting headaches whenever they touched someone, didn't get seizures for no apparent reason from ghosts. They didn't even believe in ghosts. Because they were normal. He wasn't. And because of that, Dennis couldn't stand them.

Checking to make sure his meds were still in his pocket, he grabbed his umbrella and left the library, left the safety that he had gained for a few months.

The bus ride home was, thankfully, free of encounters. He managed to procure a seat at the back of the bus that remained unoccupied the whole trip, saving him from the embarrassment of having to edge away from anyone who might touch him.

He walked the block from the bus stop to his building in five minutes, avoiding the deeper puddles. This wasn't exactly the ritzy part of town. His apartment was a plain red brick building with bronze lettering proclaiming "Oakwood Apartments – No Vacancy". Not fancy, but it was clean and comfortable.

Dennis trudged through the doors and took the stairs to his third-floor apartment, which was safer than taking the elevator. The landlord hadn't gotten around to getting the repair guy in, and the elevator was prone to getting stuck or letting people off at the wrong floors.

Unlocking his apartment, Dennis stepped inside, soaking wet despite his black umbrella. He surveyed his home with his usual mixture of relief and resentment. It was clean enough, with soft carpeting and earth-tone paint, and small but fully functional kitchen and bathroom units. He had minimal furniture, which didn't really matter because he lived alone – and never had guests. His home wasn't the most luxurious, but it wasn't a shithole like some of the other places he had lived before moving here a few months ago. Kicking off his shoes, Dennis shook out and folded his umbrella and hung up his coat. He was, thankfully, ahead on his rent and bills. By the time the next payments needed to be made, he would have another job – hopefully. 

Dennis realized he was shivering. It was bloody cold out for November, and he was soaked. Deciding to save money by not bothering to turn the heat up, Dennis strode to the bathroom and inserted the plug in the tub. He turned on the hot water tap full blast, filling the tub with scalding water. Turning, he caught sight of himself in the mirror that hung over the sink. He blinked slightly as he studied his bony face, short brown hair and blue-green eyes, his tall, gangly form dressed in jeans and a dark sweater as usual. Making a face, he undressed quickly and sunk into the bath, yelping slightly as the hot water stung his chilled skin.

He lied back, resting his head on the back of the tub and closing his eyes. His life wasn't as bad as some, he guessed, but it was no field of roses, either. Ever since he was born, he had been unable to touch anyone because of his gift. Oh, he had endured the necessity with gritted teeth as a child, whenever his parents or family hugged him or whenever a kid came in contact with him at school. As he grew he started to understand more and more about what was really wrong with him, what the visions and pain were really about. 

When he told his parents he was psychic, they put him into therapy. Like that would help. It only made things worse. The shrinks put him on medication, diagnosing him with first traumatic stress, then epilepsy, then depression, and a score of other 'conditions', each one coming with a different prescription. By the time he graduated high school, he was up to seven pills a day. He could barely think straight let alone function, and the visions and headaches got worse instead of better. He struggled his way through a few years of college; enough to guarantee him a job above minimum wage but no more. Sure that his life was over, he even tried committing suicide; he still had the scars on his wrists from where he had slit them. 

Unfortunately (or fortunately, he couldn't decide which), his roommate at the time had found him before he could bleed out. After his trip to the hospital, the doctors took Dennis off the drugs. He had stayed with his parents while he was going through withdrawal. That was perhaps the greatest low in his life. His dreams had been haunted by painful visions until he didn't know if he was sleeping or awake anymore. 

He had moved out of his parents' place after a few months and for the next three years had moved around all over the country, running from the ghosts, both emotional and spiritual, that had chased him, finally coming to rest here.

 And here he was, out of a job again. 

Dennis heaved a tremendous sigh and shifted in the rapidly cooling water. Here in his apartment, he was safe from human contact. He didn't have to go near anyone, didn't have to face the awkward questions and stares that accompanied his refusal to shake hands or even brush against anyone. 

But the ghosts…the ghosts were another story. They didn't care about walls or locked doors. They followed him everywhere, whether he liked it or not. Ghosts were like everyone, Dennis supposed. They had stayed on earth for some particular reason or strong emotion, and then realized that nobody could see them, hear them. Except for Dennis. 

Ghosts seemed to know that he could see them, hear them, share their pain. And they were all too eager to share that pain. They didn't seem to care that it caused him physical harm; they just wanted to be heard. He shouldn't have blamed them for that. But he did. All his life, he had shared in other peoples' memories, their pain, until he couldn't focus on his own pain, his own problems. He felt empty. He felt…used.

Finally rising from the now lukewarm water, Dennis dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist. Padding into the bedroom, he dressed in dry clothes and slumped into the main room, plunking down on the couch. Grabbing the newspaper, he flipped to the job adds, quickly scanning the page and circling the more promising-looking openings. There weren't many. All of them involved human contact, and that wasn't exactly one of Dennis's strengths.

Frustrated, Dennis refolded the paper and gazed around the room, wondering what he was going to do for the rest of the day. Without a job, he had nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to see.

"You are one lonely sonabitch, Rafkin," he mumbled drearily. What would a normal person do at a time like this? They would probably sit and watch TV, or read, or even go for a drive. Dennis didn't drive. He had learned quickly that automobiles and the possibility of blinding seizures don't mix very well. In his state, driving was as good as suicide – or worse, homicide. The first time he had nearly hit a pedestrian, Dennis had traded in his car. No way in hell he was going through that again.

And so it was that Dennis Rafkin spent the rest of the day in a stupor of binge drinking and blaming the world for everything wrong in his life. Hey, everyone's gotta do it sometime, he reasoned as he cracked open his third vodka. Toasting to his own fucked-up life, he put the bottle to his lips and kept gulping the stuff until he passed out.

The next day, Dennis awoke to the phone ringing. His head was pounding, not from a spiritual encounter this time but just a simple hangover. As much as it hurt, Dennis couldn't help but feel almost proud that he could even have something as delightfully normal as a hangover.

The phone rang again, its shrill chime piercing his ears. Cringing, Dennis realized her was still on the couch. His clothes were rumpled and liquor bottles were stacked next to the couch on the floor. He checked the time: 8:30! Who the hell would be calling at Eight-thirty?!

The phone rang again, making Dennis feel as if his head would explode. But for once the headache wasn't riddled with insane visions, so he couldn't really complain. He launched himself forward and grabbed the phone off the end table.

"'Llo?" he said groggily.

"Hello," said a curt voice on the other end, "Is this a Mr. Dennis Rafkin?"

Oh, great, Dennis thought. This guy must be a telemarketer. He hated telemarketers. If he had the money he would go buy a call display, just to avoid the telemarketers. 

"Whadda you want?" he said, attempting to express to them his displeasure that they were calling at 8:30 in the morning to try selling him something he couldn't afford anyway. Especially when he was hung over. 

There was a pause on the other end, as if the speaker was debating whether to rebuke Dennis for his less than polite greeting. Then it continued, unfazed.

"Mr. Rafkin, I understand you're out of a job."

Dennis bolted upright, no longer drowsy. How did this guy know that? Dennis sat stiffly on his couch, his eyes narrowed. He was tempted just to hang up on this guy. He didn't respond.

"Mr. Rafkin?" the voice on the other line repeated, not impatiently.

Dennis took a deep breath. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, cringing as his paranoia came through in his tone, "What do you want?"

Another pause. "I'd like to offer you a job, Mr. Rafkin."

Dennis made a face, thankful that the guy on the other end couldn't see him. A job? This guy called at this ungodly hour of the morning to offer him a job?

"And what job is this, exactly?" Dennis asked, "And you still haven't told me who you are."

"Terribly sorry," said the voice, seeming to belong to a man in his mid-fifties or so, "How rude. My name is Cyrus Kriticos. I am an – er – adventurer, one could say, that's doing some…research in this area of the country at the moment. I would very much like it if you were to oblige me by assisting with this…project."

Dennis's eyes narrowed again. This sounded a little – off. The guy quite obviously wasn't saying everything; probably wasn't saying much of anything concerning his real plans. So why would he…

"It would, of course, pay very well," the guy, Kriticos, promised, "And though it may be a…challenge…for you I'm sure you'll find it entirely rewarding."

Dennis wasn't liking this. He was starting to wish he hadn't answered the phone.

"Cut the shit already, man," he growled, "Just tell me what you want me to do."

Kriticos wasn't fazed by Dennis less-than-courteous reply. In fact, he seemed amused.

"Ah, you see, that is the question, Mr. Rafkin, and I'm afraid I'm loath to tell you about it over the phone. I was wondering if perhaps you could meet me at a more convenient time and place and we can talk face to face."

Dennis took a minute to think it over. He did need the money, and even though the guy was starting to creep him out he sounded like he would be able to pay what he promised. Why not just hear him out?

So Dennis took a deep breath and said the words that would alter his life irreparably: "Sure, why the hell not?"


	2. The Interview

Disclaimer: Blah blah blah...no ownage.blah blah blah.no money.blah blah blah.don't sue me. Merci! 

A/N: Thanks to all those who reviewed, I've never got this many reviews in so short a time before! Thanks guys, especially you Magdalena. I, too, am irritated. Hence, why this story is being written. Thank you all so much, enjoy!

Chapter 2: The Interview

This, Dennis thought, is why the hell not. He had followed Kriticos' instructions from the day before to an office building downtown, not far from the library. Now he was sitting in a sparsely-furnished fifth-floor waiting room, awaiting his prospective employer to get the time to see him. 

A cheery blonde secretary had taken his name and informed him that Mr. Kriticos would only be a few minutes, directing Dennis to take a seat. There were only three chairs in the room. One was the swivel chair the secretary was perched on and the other two were across the room. Dennis plopped down into one of them, gritting his teeth. It was new and expensive-looking, but rock-hard. As he shifted, trying to get comfortable, his eyes scanned the room. Even though there was no reason to believe otherwise, Dennis got a feeling that this office wasn't used much. Oh, it was clean and everything; immaculate in fact. The industrial carpet was spotless gray, the chairs and small table containing Newsweek magazines was polished, and there were tasteful watercolors on the squeaky clean white walls. The only other furniture in the room was the pine desk the secretary sat behind. The secretary herself was pretty but not slutty, and had a cheerful yet businesslike manner. The desk was complete with a fax machine that, in the five minutes Dennis had been here, hadn't received anything, and honestly, (though Dennis didn't claim to know about these new machines, the library's fax had been ancient) didn't appear even to be turned on. The desk had a phone, but it had yet to ring, and a computer which the secretary typed lazily away at, as if she had all the time in the world. It was like out of a movie or something. Perfect, like. Dennis fought back a shiver. Maybe.too perfect?

Dennis made a face at himself. 'Don't be stupid,' he thought, 'you're just nervous and your mind's making up stuff to get you even more worried.'

But he couldn't shake the feeling that, somehow, this wasn't what Cyrus Kriticos' office worked like when there was nobody around. And then there had been the receptionist when he had entered the main floor of the building. When Dennis had asked him where he could find the office of Kriticos Enterprises, the man had presented a blank look for half a second before giving Dennis a fake smile and directing him to the fifth floor. Dennis had felt the guy's eyes on him all the way to the elevator. It was almost as if the guy hadn't recognized the name right away.odd.

'Or,' Dennis rebuked himself silently, 'you could be just imagining things, and being out in public in an unfamiliar place has got you on edge.'

Before he could finish that thought, the secretary looked up and smiled a cheery smile at him.

"Mr. Kriticos will see you now, Mr. Rafkin," she stated formally, pointing to a door at the back of the room with a plaque proclaiming 'C. Kriticos'.

Dennis got to his feet, shaking slightly with nerves and his growing paranoia. He chanced a glance down at himself as he strode across the room. He was dressed as he would be for any other job interview, in a silky red dress shirt, dark blazer and dark blue cotton pants. His hair was gelled and mussed on his head in modern style, aided by the stiff wind outside.

He approached the door, took a steadying breath, and reached for the doorknob. But before he could touch it, it swung inwards on its own. Quickly retracting his hand, Dennis stepped into the room. It, too, was sparsely furnished. There was a large window facing the street, not unlike Gina's office, and before the window loomed a huge dark wood desk. The desk held no computer, no phone, nothing other than an intercom used to contact the secretary and a book which Kriticos had no doubt been reading before Dennis came in. There was a chair in front of the desk, and one behind it. The latter held the man who was, Dennis assumed, Mr. Cyrus Kriticos. 

The guy looked like he sounded; Dennis registered the graying hair, expensive suit and face lined with age and something else - the word cruelty crossed Dennis' mind before something else hit him. There was no other furniture in the room, but there was this strange writing on the walls.it looked like some ancient rune lettering or something. Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind him. Dennis jumped about a foot in the air, his heart jumping into his throat and making it hard to breathe.

Then it hit him: the familiar cold that preludes.

The first wave of pain had Dennis on his knees, clutching his head and moaning. Not again, not now.

"Aggghhh!"

*A desk, long blonde hair, long legs, "Hello, Sampson and associates, how may I.", Money, success, "C'mon, no one will know"."I'll know.", Sex, love, success, wife, girlfriend, "No honey, it's not what it looks like." Please, no." Gun, knife, can't tell, can't know, this has to end, knife, blood, No! Please, no! Knife, blood, bleeding, screaming, No! I thought you loved me, no.blood everywhere, screaming, pain, pain, blood, more pain, red, gun, goodbye, BANG!*

Dennis was on the ground by now, the visions roiling over him. He convulsed on himself.

"Go away! I see you! Leave me alone! Ahh!"

The visions replayed over in his head. He saw the blood on the walls, the guy blowing his brains out, the two bodies, one on the floor, one draped over the desk. And over it all, closer and yet somehow farther away, the sound of deep voice saying words that made no sense.

And then it was over, the visions stopped and the pain ebbed. Dennis opened his eyes, blinking through the tears of pain and horror. When he could see clearly again, he raised his head. A wave of nausea swept over him and he got a blinding head rush before he steadied himself enough to dig in his pocket for his meds. Popping three dry, he forced his shaking muscles to heave him to his feet and turned toward Kriticos' desk, wondering if perhaps the man had gone to call for help or something.

But no. Kriticos just sat there, calm as anything, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. The older man steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them, smiling smugly as if Dennis had just proven a point the man had made. There was no sign of the usual wariness that came when Dennis had one of his attacks, no sign of alarm or even surprise. It was as if Kriticos had been expecting it. But that was stupid. Unless.

Dennis thought about it. First there had been the bizarre job offer, then the confused guy at the front desk, the too-perfect secretary, the sterile-looking office, and now this man who didn't find it at all odd that Dennis had just had what must have looked like a full-blown epileptic fit. And suddenly it all fit together.

"This isn't your real office, is it?" he accused, pointing at Kriticos. He backed slowly away, edging back toward the door. He had to get out of here. Now. He kept pointing at the old man who now looked nothing other than amused.

"You probably don't even have an office, do you? There is no Kriticos Enterprises, I looked it up I the phone book. You tipped off the guy downstairs, right? So he'd lead me up here for you? And you hired the secretary to make it look real."

Dennis must have sounded crazy, but to his surprise Kriticos nodded.

"That's quite correct. Very good, Mr. Rafkin, I didn't expect you to get it that quickly. I'm impressed."

Dennis reached the door and grabbed the handle. He had heard stories, through discreet searches he had made, about people who thought it was fun to capture so-called psychics and use them for their own purposes. Was that what Kriticos wanted? Dennis wasn't about to be exploited that way. Nuh uh.

He twisted the handle. It didn't budge. Biting his lip, Dennis turned his back reluctantly on Kriticos and tugged at the door. Nothing. The sound of chuckling arose behind him. So the old guy was having a good time. That made one of them.

Dennis swung back around.

"Look, man, I'm not sure what kind of game you're playing here, but I'm not going to be a part of it. So how 'bout you just let me outta here before I have to force my way out."

At that, Kriticos actually threw his head back and roared with laughter. Dennis frowned. This guy was crazier than he was! Wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, Kriticos cleared his throat.

"Mr. Rafkin, I doubt very much that you could force your way out of this office by any means short of jumping through the window and falling five stories to the pavement. Now, I've done nothing to harm you. In fact, I believe I delivered you from your encounter by banishing the ghosts, so please, if you'll just sit down, I'll fill you in on my job offer."

Dennis just stood there, stunned. He couldn't have heard what he thought he had just heard. 

Kriticos gestured to the chair across the desk from him and, dazed, Dennis crossed the room on shaking legs and sat.

"Now," Kriticos began, "what you just experienced, Mr. Rakfin, was a test. I had to know if you were really as psychic as my sources claimed you were, and so I arranged to have this office rented to me for the day. I chose it because its last owner had a torrid affair with his secterary and, upon his wife finding out about it, he stabbed the secretary to death and-"

"Blew his own brains out, yeah, I saw." Dennis finished irritably, not liking this at all, "So you set this whole thing up to bring me here and 'test' me, which in case you didn't figure it out felt more like a sophisticated means of torture, and I think I've passed the test. Now what?"

Kriticos eyed Dennis with amusement.

"Patience, my boy, I'll get around to that. Now you may have noticed when you came in the - out of the ordinary - decorations on the walls."

Dennis looked around, remembering the bizarre lettering on the walls.

"Yeah," he said, "what are they?"

"They're Latin spells, Mr. Rafkin," Kriticos explained, "They are containment spells designed to keep a ghost in a particular area according to certain guidelines. Whether written or spoken, these spells make up the rulebook of the spirits world. Spirits must obey the spells."

"That's how you kept the ghosts of that guy and his secretary in this room," Dennis said, understanding dawning on him. He didn't have any reason to believe Kriticos, but what the man said made sense. Up till now, Dennis had been running blind through a world he knew virtually nothing about, unsure about how to get around the disgruntled spirits that followed him everywhere, sure only of temporary safety. But if this containment spell thing was true.

"That's correct, Mr. Rafkin," Kriticos smiled, "I really am quite impressed. You're a fair bit brighter than even I had dared hope for; most psychics of your ability are either mad or dead by their own hands at your age. Fascinating how you've kept yourself alive and  sane so long."

He trailed off, muttering to himself. Dennis wasn't sure when he had started trusting Kriticos, especially after the events of the last hour, but he had. Although, he couldn't say he was all that comfortable with Kriticos speculating about Dennis' sanity. It was fragile enough.

"You'd be surprised," he said in response, leaving the old man to chew on that. Just because he trusted the guy didn't mean Dennis liked him. Oh, no, there was something off about this guy. But then again, anyone who had just about had their head explode from a migraine the size of Russia and then looked up to see the only other person in the room smiling at them would tend to think badly of that other person. Just as a theory.

The room fell silent. After a moment or two, Dennis cleared his throat and said tentatively, "About this job."

'Right," Kriticos said smoothly, as if there had never been a break in the conversation, "As you have so quickly figured out, this is not my office. As I said over the phone, I am an adventurer by trade. By that I mean that I deal with the supernatural and the many things that can be gained," Kriticos grinned brightly, "through its manipulation and use."

Dennis' jaw dropped. This guy had just come right out and said that he dealt with ghosts?

"What do you mean, the supernatural?" he asked, his voice a bit higher in pitch than was normal.

"I mean exactly what you think I mean, Mr. Rafkin. I deal with spirits, wraiths, ghosts, whatever you want to call them. I am, in fact, a ghost hunter."

Dennis could only blink. 

"A ghost hunter?" 

Maybe Kriticos really was insane, he thought as the old man nodded. But then again, how sane was he, Dennis? He, too, saw ghosts and believed wholeheartedly in their existence (as if he had a choice,) and until now he hadn't met another living soul that had believed the way he did, that had taken his world so seriously. And here was this old man, Cyrus Kriticos, offering him the chance to not only get paid for using his powers and fully acknowledging the world he had been living with his whole life, but to have the chance to understand those powers better, maybe even learn how to control them. Could he really pass that up on such trivial grounds as sanity?

Dennis sat back in his chair.

"Alright, so what do you want me to do?"


	3. In Too Deep

Disclaimer: Well, I still don't own Dennis. Or any of these quirky characters or places. I suppose I'll just have to keep trying.

PLUG: All you Dark Castle fans, get ready for a new and upcoming fic written by yours truly as a tribute to the long-standing television series 'Survivor,' the one, the only, Dark Castle Survivor. 16 of your favourite characters. 45 Days. One Survivor. Coming soon to the Movie Crossovers section!

A/N: Thanks so much for all your support guys, shout-outs to Magdalena, catiepie, etc. thanks so much for not flaming me! Your reviews mean so much to me, I keep them in their own folder in my Hotmail box! Thanks, and enjoy installment 3 of A Bit of A Freak.

Chapter 3: In Too Deep

Dennis closed the door behind him and resisted the urge to slide down the wall like people do in cartoons. He wanted to just melt into a puddle of goo, and then maybe he could forget about what he had done today.

After deciding to give Kriticos' offer a shot, Dennis had listened to the job description. Kriticos had explained exactly what he needed: twelve ghosts. No more or less than twelve. And not just any twelve ghosts, either. Twelve particular ghosts, handpicked by Kriticos. 

When Dennis had asked why the old man wanted just these twelve ghosts, Kriticos had gotten evasive, telling Dennis that the ghosts he sought were dangerous and could pose a harm to people. Given what Dennis had already seen of Kriticos, the guy didn't seem to care a lot for the welfare of fellow human beings. So that part was obviously bullshit, but Dennis had kept his mouth shut. He had wanted to know the salary involved in this job before blowing his chances.

Kriticos had explained about the cubes he was going to use, inscribed with the same type of spells written on the walls of the office. He had explained to Dennis how he would track his special ghosts' whereabouts using a kind of compass thingy that he had pulled out of a pocket. It was pretty cool, with little whirly designs engraved in it.

Kriticos had told Dennis that the job would require some traveling, because the ghosts he was looking for were scattered all around the country. This hadn't been the best news Dennis had had all day, and as he thought mournfully of the apartment that he had just begun to feel comfortable in, he had really wanted to know what this job paid.

Finally, Kriticos had presented him with a figure: $50,000 per ghost, and all his traveling expenses paid. 

That was 600,000 dollars! Dennis' heart had ceased to beat for a moment, then had begun pumping blood to his head so fast his headache had started to return. 600,000 dollars! Screw the apartment! With that kind of money he could buy a house!

After a moment or two of giddy elation, his mind had begun working again.

"Wait a minute," he had said, "You never told me exactly what I have to do."

Kriticos had surveyed him quietly for a moment, making Dennis squirm under his scrutiny. He didn't like being looked at directly for long periods of time.

Finally, Kriticos had smiled, the kind of smile a telemarketer must wear whilst their overly-cheery voice told people about the latest life insurance policy. Denis hated telemarketers.

"You see, Mr. Rafkin, I can do all the tracking I want and have all the equipment in the world, but I can only do so much. Spirits can be slippery things, and they won't want to be caught. That's why I need someone to scope out their exact location, someone who can sense them. That would be you, Mr. Rafkin. Your job would be to simply get a feel for the spirit, connect with it so that we can capture it with no delay. You understand?"

Oh, Dennis understood. He was supposed to go out there and touch the ghosts, let them latch onto him like so many others did and pour their dirty little secrets into him, distract them so that Kriticos could snap them up in his little spelled cubes. Dennis' sense of self-preservation and well-being warred with the vision of that $600,000 floating before his eyes. It was a lot of money, but was it worth risking his life and his sanity?

The answer hadn't taken as long to reach as Dennis had thought it would, which left him feeling a little in question of his moral stability. 

"I'll do it," Dennis said, "But if it turns out to be dangerous, you're outta luck. You saw what happened just now. I'm not risking my ass for your little ghost hunt, okay?"

He hadn't meant to say it like that, but his emotions were getting in the way of his professional demeanor. Kriticos ignored his rudeness as usual though, nodding.

"You're quite right, Mr. Rafkin, quite right. I wouldn't ask you to put your life on the line for me. But," he had said, leaning across the table, "I want you to be very clear, Mr. Rafkin, that I have to be very careful in this endeavor of mine. I have to insure my every move, which means that you need to make a contract with me. You'll get your money as promised, but not until you've helped me capture all twelve ghosts. And only when you do. I understand that you'll put your own safety first, but if you forfeit the job, I will not feel the need to pay you anything at all. Is that clear?"

Dennis had opened his mouth to argue before realizing it was useless. The old man had obviously planned this all out very well, a perfect little web to catch him in. Well, fine. Dennis could play that way, too. He now had no doubt that he could carry out the job, if only to spite Kriticos.

"Deal," he had said, a grin beginning to creep across his face, "No need to worry. I can do this."

Kriticos had grinned back, and for a moment Dennis had seen something lurking in the old man's eyes: something dangerous, something ruthless, something that wasn't even human. It was gone in a flash though, leaving Dennis wondering if he had even seen it at all. Kriticos had stuck his hand across the table to seal the deal, and Dennis had jerked away from it.

"Sorry, man, no can do," Dennis had said, "One of those drawbacks to being crazy, you know. Can't touch people."

Kriticos had looked puzzled, but retracted his hand. "And why not, Mr. Rafkin?"

Dennis had suddenly grown uncomfortable. Even though Kriticos had proven to be a believer in Dennis' world of the strange and psychic, Dennis had never told anyone the truth about not being able to touch others, and he was a bit leery of it.

With a shrug, he had figured that Kriticos might as well know; they were going to be working together in close proximity with ghosts and each other.

"Well," he had said, "Every time someone so much as brushes against me, I kinda…I dunno, connect with them. I see all the pain in their past, all the bad stuff that's ever happened to them. I feel their emotions, their thoughts, their memories. It's like getting their life history in a split second. And it hurts like a bitch."

For a moment, Kriticos had frowned, then his had expression cleared. 

"I've heard of that before, actually. I believe some psychics call it 'linking.' It's a very rare form of psychic gift. Needless to say, most of the psychics that are born with that particular gift don't live very long, either ending up dying in a hospital or taking their own life."

Dennis had been dumbstruck. Not only had Kriticos known about the ghosts and the visions, but he knew about the other stuff, the parts of Dennis that made him useless in society. He had even given it a name! 

"Linking…" Dennis tried it out. Yeah...

At that moment, Dennis knew that he would trust Kriticos with his life. This man was the only other living thing that Dennis had ever come across to even come close to understanding his pain, his fear, his 'condition.'

Overwhelmed with joy and a relief so great he wondered if he could fly through the window, Dennis grinned at Kriticos.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Kriticos," he had said, standing to leave, "I promise I won't let you down."

Kriticos had smiled at Dennis' puppy-like happiness. 

"Promise noted. And please, call me Cyrus. 'Mr. Kriticos' makes me feel old."

Dennis had nodded once.

"Okay, then you gotta call me Dennis."

"Fair enough, Dennis. I'll call you tomorrow and tell you when we're leaving to get the first ghost."

Dennis had exited the building, noting that the 'secretary' had already departed. He made his way to the bus stop and had ridden the bus home, so happy that he had hardly minded when an old lady sat down beside him.

Halfway home, it had hit him. What had he gotten himself into?

Now, as Dennis leaned against the door of his apartment, he groaned and shut his eyes. He slammed his head back against the solid door.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he repeated, punctuating each repetition with another head slam. How had he managed to get himself into this mess? He was in way over his head, and he knew it. 

'Well,' he thought, 'not much I can do now.'

Stringing together a bunch of colourful words, Dennis slumped down on his couch. Goddamned old man.

A/N: Sorry, this is a short chapter. I'm getting pretty busy, so it might be a while until my next update. Sorry in advance! Review and let me know where you want the story to go from here. Do you want me to write about all the captures, or just some of them? How far do you want it to go? Now's your time to feedback!


	4. On the Way

Disclaimer: I don't anything you recognize from the movie Thir13en Ghosts. 

A/N: Alrighty, sorry about the long wait, I really do try to update quickly but lately I've had no time what with…things. Thanks again for all your reviews, and yes, Bound Woman, Kalina is awfully cool. I love her, too. She'll have a big part later in the story. 

Okay, here goes:

Chapter 4: On the Way

Dennis awoke the next day to the sound of the phone ringing. He shot straight up in bed and blinked a few times. Staring blearily at the digital clock for a few seconds, he managed to register that the time was 7:23. Dennis moaned, scrubbing his face with his hands, and rolled sluggishly out of bed to answer the phone.

"Whaddya want?" he growled groggily into the mouthpiece.

"Really, Mr. Rafkin, do you never answer your phone with "hello" like normal people?"

Dennis sprang to attention at the sound of Kriticos' voice.

"I told you to call me Dennis," he said wryly, his normal sarcastic demeanor kicking back in, "and I'm not a normal person."

"Ah, yes. Terribly sorry. Well, Dennis, I've located the first ghost we need to catch. We leave today. I'm sorry for the short notice, but you must understand that these spirits are extremely difficult to locate, and I'm afraid I'm on a very tight time schedule."

Dennis restrained himself from asking why the old man was on such a tight schedule for catching these things. Did ghost-hunting have to be done in a certain amount of time? There were millions of questions left over in Dennis' head from the interview, but he voiced none of them. Something told him this job would be best performed without the benefit of curiosity.

"No problem," Dennis replied, thinking of how empty his day would have been without a job, "Not like I have anything better to do."

"Very well. You will meet me at the airport at 10:30, then?"

"Sure, I'll be there."

"See you then."

There was a click on the other end and the line disconnected. Placing the phone back on its cradle, Dennis took another minute to blink his eyes into focus and strode into the bathroom to take a shower.

Two hours later, Dennis stood at the bus stop with a small duffel bag in his hands containing a few changes of clothing and toiletries, two bottles of painkillers, and his wallet. He felt oddly like he had on his first day of school: awkward, nauseatingly nervous and full of a dread of something he couldn't even identify yet. As the bus pulled up to the curb, the world suddenly started to spin.

There was no pain this time, only lightheadedness, as if he were floating far above himself. Then the visions came.

*A beaming little boy clutching a fake bow and arrow, a closed-faced man smoking a cigarette and laying down an ace of spades, a pretty teenaged girl bouncing around in a cheerleader's outfit, a blinding flash of light, a handsome boy hitting a home run, a gorgeous young woman tossing her shining blonde hair, a aging woman in an old-fashioned dress knitting a scarf, a midget woman feeding a baby ten times her size, a burly dark-skinned man happily pounding away at a forge, a grizzled-looking man in a straightjacket, a tall man bent over the hood of a car, another flash of light, a huge metal circle spinning, a giant writhing machine*

With another blinding flash, Dennis came back to himself to find the bus driver leaning in his seat, looking at him funny. 

"You okay there?" The driver asked as Dennis shook his head, amazed at what had just happened. There was still no pain. How could that be?

Slightly dazed, Dennis nodded and attempted a smile, then hoisted his bag and got on the bus, brushing carefully past the driver, who still had an odd look on his face.

When he reached the airport, Dennis got off the bus without looking at the driver and, carefully weaving his way through the crowds of milling people, made his way to the Departures entrance.

When he got through the sliding glass doors, he looked around, trying to spot Kriticos or some sign of the man. 

"Good morning, Mr. Rafkin," came a cheery voice from right behind him, causing Dennis to jump a foot in the air and come down with his pulse racing and his heart in his throat. Turning around slowly with his hand over his chest, Dennis managed a half-smile in Kriticos' direction. 

"Hi," he said simply, still trying to return his heart rate to normal. Was this always what it was going to be like working for Kriticos? Did the guy find it entertaining to keep people on edge all the time? He certainly seemed to be having a good time.

Kriticos didn't seem to notice the insincerity of Dennis' greeting. On the contrary, he looked positively jovial. He handed Dennis a boarding pass, almost glowing with boyish excitement.

"A bit jumpy today, Mr. Rafkin?" Kriticos said.

"I'm a bit jumpy everyday, Mr. Kriticos. Another drawback to being a freak, you know. And the name is Dennis."

"Of course, of course," Kriticos said absently, already turning away, "Now come along, we don't want to be late."

Left with no choice but to follow, Dennis' long stride allowed him to catch up to Kriticos quickly.

"Uh…" he asked hesitantly, "Where exactly are we going?"

"A small town in North Carolina. We'll land in Raleigh and drive the rest of the way," Kriticos explained without even turning to look at Dennis. The older man was checking the overhead signs, looking for their gate number. Dennis glanced down at his pass. Gate B39, departing at 11:20. Okay. 

When they reached the gate, the preliminary boarding was being announced. Kriticos led Dennis over to where a group of about twenty people sat in the cheap vinyl airport chairs, all chatting nonchalantly but looking just as nervous as Dennis felt. They turned as one when Kriticos and Dennis approached. Some were smiling, some serious. All of them seemed to recognize Kriticos, and some greeted him politely. Were all these people working for the old guy? And more importantly, did they know what they were really going to be doing?

"Now boarding rows 20 through 30" droned the PA system, and the group stood.

One of them, a small brown-haired man that looked to be about Dennis' age, spoke up.

"That's our call. We'll see you in Raleigh."

The man shot Dennis a quick glance and turned away to gather his luggage and catch up with his fellows.

Dennis turned to Kriticos, flustered.

"Who're they?"

"They're the rest of our crew. You didn't expect us to be able to catch a violent spirit with just the two of us, did you?"

Dennis didn't respond for a minute, waiting for his dazed mind to process this new bit of information. 

"We're not flying with them?"

"They're flying coach. We're flying business class."

Dennis blinked as the PA crackled on again.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, Mr. Rafkin, I'm not kidding. Now hurry up, that's our call."

With that, Kriticos turned and strode toward the gate, leaving Dennis stunned in his wake. Dennis had known he was in over his head, but he hadn't realized how deep he really was until this very moment.

They boarded the plane, stowed their baggage and seated themselves in the comfy first-class seats. Dennis hadn't flown since he was sixteen, when he had needed to cross the country for a specialist appointment, where they had given him yet another diagnosis and more brain-numbing drugs. So naturally, Dennis' memories of flying were dread, sickness, medication, cramped legs, small bathrooms and nasty food. He had never flown first-class before though, and already he could feel the improvements. The added leg room was a blessing, first of all. The seats were wider as well, which was nice because he could somewhat distance himself from other people to avoid unwanted touching. In this case, Dennis had a seat by the window and the only person next to him was Kriticos. The old man looked completely used to the comfort of business class. Dennis had to admit he was a bit flattered that Kriticos had booked him a seat with him in first-class rather than a seat with the rest of the crew. As if he were actually important or something.

The plane took off with the same whoosh Dennis remembered, the pressure causing his head to begin pounding. Once they were level, he quickly stood, retrieved his meds from his bag and popped a few. Sitting back down, he noticed Kriticos was eying him.

"Not used to flying, Mr. Rafkin?"

Dennis grinned slightly. "No. I never fly. Bad experience, you know."

And he had never had the money. His transportation in the last few years had been limited to busses, cabs and other forms of public transport.

As the ride wore on, Dennis and Kriticos talked – in hushed, careful voices – about what was to come. Kriticos explained that all the equipment they would need would be waiting for them in the small town that was their destination. He also explained the capturing procedure: Dennis would locate the ghost, the containment cube would be shoved into place, and recorded summoning spells would be played, drawing the ghost in. It seemed simple enough, and best of all not too painful for Dennis. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all, he thought.

It turned out the first-class food is not as nasty as Dennis had remembered plane food to be. Go figure.

Finally, after a long pause in the conversation, Dennis got up the nerve to ask about his earlier visions.

"So," he began, "You know a thing or two about psychics, huh?"

"I don't fancy myself an expert," Kriticos replied, "But I've heard things, yes. Is there something you'd like to know?"

Dennis took a deep breath. Oh boy.

"Well, you know how when I come within reach of a ghost I can see them?"

"Yes, Mr. Rafkin. That's why I hired you, after all."

"Oh yeah," Dennis said, feeling like an idiot, then continued, "And when I touch people, I see their past, more specifically the bad stuff in their past."

"Right."

"And whenever it happens, I get these migraines and dizziness and stuff."

Kriticos nodded his understanding, encouraging as if listening to a particularly shy eight-year-old.

"Well, earlier, before I got to the airport, it happened. I mean, I saw stuff, as if there was a ghost around. But it wasn't just one. I saw a bunch of people, but they didn't look dead. And my head didn't hurt."

Kriticos frowned. "That's odd."

"Yeah," Dennis sighed, relieved somehow that Kriticos even believed him.

"Describe the vision to me. Maybe I can tell you what you were seeing."

Dennis described the dozen or so images he had seen. Kriticos' expression went from shocked to intrigued to amused, but when Dennis mentioned the circle and the twisting machine, Kriticos' face turned severe.

"Well, Mr. Rafkin, I can tell you about the people you saw."

Dennis let his jaw drop as he stared at Kriticos' hooded expression.

"You're shittin' me."

"No, I'm not. The people you saw are the living renditions of the spirits we will be capturing. Amazing that you saw all of them so clearly. Except…well, that will come later…"

Kriticos seemed to be talking to himself rather than to Dennis, but after a minute of muttering he snapped back to attention.

"Amazing, Mr. Rafkin. It seems you have greater powers than even you knew. The visions you saw weren't caused by the presence of a spirit or the touch of a human being, so you experienced no pain. But you saw…incredible..."

Dennis couldn't help but grin. "Thanks, I guess. But what about the last bit, about the-"

"I have no idea, Mr. Rafkin," Kriticos said quickly, "That, I'm afraid, is beyond me."

As Kriticos turned away, Dennis slanted a narrow-eyed glance at him. He had the sneaky feeling the old guy knew a hell of a lot more than he said he did about those visions. But he let it slide, not wanting to perhaps touch a nerve or snoop where he had no business snooping.

"And it's Dennis," he muttered dryly under his breath.

The rest of the trip passed quickly, and soon they were landing in Raleigh. They stepped out of the gate and into the bustle of the airport and waited for the others. From his higher vantage point of 6'3", Dennis was able to spot the small brown-haired man from earlier moving through the crowd, his fellows trailing after him.

"There they are," he said, pointing them out to Kriticos. After a minute, the group had reached them and Kriticos introduced Dennis to them. 

All of the people were young, Dennis' age or a bit older, and most of them were men, but there were three or four women interspersed among them.

One of them, a tall red-haired woman with brilliant green eyes, approached him first.

"Hi," she said, extending her hand, "I'm Ailis. Ailis O'Shea."

Reflexively, Dennis cringed back from her hand, his own arms in the air. He was aware the eyes of the group on him, and he felt his cheeks heat up. He lowered his arms and cleared his throat.

"Hi," he said simply. He cleared his throat again before his sarcastic, protective sense of humor kicked in. "Nothing personal. I just tend to avoid contact after a long plane ride. You know those gross, sweaty hands."

He heard a snort and looked up to see the brown-haired guy cover his mouth with his fist and make it look like he was coughing. Their eyes caught and Dennis found he, too, had to fight back a grin. Meanwhile, Ailis looked a bit miffed, if not downright insulted. She backed off and whispered something to one of her fellow females.

Kriticos then cleared his throat with a loud cough, and everyone turned to look at him.

"Ms. O'Shea, you will remember what I told you about Mr. Rafkin?"

Ailis, still looking a bit pissed but now more embarrassed, nodded.

So Kriticos had told them all about him. Dennis didn't know whether he liked that or not. One the one hand, they would be cautious about touching him, which would save him a lot of trouble. On the other hand, he wasn't sure he was comfortable with them already knowing he was a freak. 

"Now that we're all here," Kriticos continued, "There will be cabs waiting outside to take you to the hotel. Once there, deposit your luggage in your rooms and get ready. We move out at 5:00 sharp."

There were nods and sounds of understanding all around, and then everyone was picking up their bags and moving toward the sliding doors leading out to the curb. Dennis fell behind the rest as they all swarmed toward the door, wary of accidentally bumping into one of them.

It was drizzling, and everything looked washed-out in the gloomy half-light. As Dennis pushed through the doors, the small guy with brown hair fell back to join him.

"Hey," he said, "Dennis, right? I'm Jarrod Markowski."

"Hi," Dennis replied as he realized his bag was caught in the doorway as it closed.

"Sunova…"

He managed to get the duffel out of the door's clasp by stepping back onto the sliding door release. By the time he turned around again, Jarrod was watching him with guarded amusement.

"Don't travel much, do you Dennis?" he asked.

Dennis decided Jarrod would appreciate more of his sarcastic humor.

"No, I'm a bit of a homebody, what with having no money, no friends and having sporadic seizures all over the place."

Jarrod smiled, a bit sympathetic.

"Yeah, I guess I know what you mean. I travel a whole lot, as a business rep for a bank. It's what I do, well, what I used to do. I got laid off a few days ago. Then I got a call from Mr. Kriticos and got this job, just outta the blue."

Dennis nodded. "Yeah, same with me."

By that time, they had reached a cab. They stowed their luggage and got in, Dennis making a discreet effort not to touch Jarrod. There was already a man squished onto the bench seat, a strongly-built guy with spiky blonde hair. He looked to Dennis to be the youngest of the gang.

"Hey," Jarrod greeted the guy as the cab pulled out into traffic. 

"Hey Jarrod," the man said, then leaned over Jarrod to peer at Dennis.

"Oh, hey there man. How are ya? The name's Kenny Schwartz."

The rest of the cab ride found the three men trading facts about themselves. Kenny and Jarrod knew each other pretty well from the plane ride however, and were more interested in Dennis and his powers.

"So you see dead people?" Kenny asked.

"Yeah, kinda. If they're within about ten feet of me. And it hurts like a bitch."

Kenny nodded sagely. "That's what the old man said. He also said it hurt you to touch people. And you can see their past…?"

"Yep," Dennis responded, almost cheerfully. It was nice to be around people that not only believed in his powers but found them amusing, as if they were nothing serious. Not a 'condition', not a disease, but a simple idiosyncrasy. It was the most relaxed Dennis had been in a long time when around people.

When they reached the hotel, a ten-story, three-star establishment on the outskirts of downtown Raleigh, the three men exited the cab and made their way into the lobby.

A few of their group had already arrived, including Ailis and three of her female companions, and a group of seven men.

Dennis, Kenny and Jarrod joined the men, who were introduced as Al, Larry, Ian, Daryl, Brock, Carl and Tom.

When the rest of the group arrived, with Kriticos in the last carload, the old man announced that they would be boarding four to a room. The four women checked in first as the men arranged themselves into foursomes. Dennis took a room with Jarrod, Kenny and Brock, a short, pointy-nosed guy that wore a gray trench coat over jeans and a black sweater.

Checking his watch as they entered their room, Dennis was surprised to find that it was already 3:30.

After each taking a fast shower and dressing in warm clothes, the men locked up and met the others in the lobby.

Kriticos came down a few minutes later, wearing the same black suit he had been wearing all day topped with a ridiculous-looking batman-style cape. A few raised eyebrows met his entrance, but nobody dared make a comment toward the old man's attire.

Surveying his crew regally, Kriticos informed them that there was a van waiting outside for them.


	5. The First Ghost

Disclaimer: Still don't own anything you recognize, but I won't give up. I'll have Dennis before I die, you mark my words!

A/N: This chapter was originally a part of Chapter 4, but then I realized it was way too long and cut it into two. Thanks again for all the awesome reviews, I feel so special! And don't forget to check out Dark Castle Survivor, coming soon to the Movie Crossovers section!

Chapter 5: The First Ghost

By the time the crew reached their destination, a deserted cemetery on top of a hill, it was full dark. Each of the crew and Dennis were handed a clear waterproof jacket and a pair of odd-looking glasses.

Turning the specs over in his hand, Dennis looked up at Kriticos. Dennis wore glasses sometimes, when he was reading and when he was tired or stressed. But none of the other people there wore any seeing apparatus; either that or they preferred contacts.

"What are these for?" he asked Kriticos.

"Spectral viewers," the old man replied, pulling his own pair out of his breast pocket, "They allow living souls to see those who have died."

"Uh huh…"

Glasses that allowed you to see ghosts? This job was getting stranger and stranger by the second!

Quickly donning the specs, Dennis glanced around the cemetery. No ghosts popped out, which left him a bit relieved. Now that he was actually here, in this dark, dismal cemetery, preparing to catch a ghost, it didn't seem like such a good idea.

It had begun to rain harder, and the ground was muddy and slick.

Just then, a loud revving sound was heard, and a huge truck came barreling around the corner and up the hill to the graveyard. It ground to a stop, and the crew began to gather around it, unloading equipment the likes of which Dennis had never seen before. He made to follow, but Kriticos held out his hand to stop him.

"You'll be staying with me, Mr. Rafkin," he said, "You're to pinpoint the exact location of the spirit."

"How do I do that?" Dennis asked, "I usually have to wait for the ghost to come to me before I can sense it."

Kriticos dug around in his pocket for a second, finally pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to Dennis.

Taking it, Dennis squinted through the dark and rain to see it. It appeared to be a photocopy. It had a lot of squiggly writing on it that looked a lot like the writing from the office. Latin, then. Maybe even spells, who knew? And in the center of the page was an illustration of a young-looking child with a hole in its forehead.

Dennis glanced up at Kriticos, making a face.

"Lovely. How will this help me exactly?"

"You remember the vision you had earlier? Of the small boy?"

"Yeah." Dennis wasn't liking where this was going.

"That's the ghost that we're looking for. His name is – was – Billy Michaels. He was quite obsessed with the boyish game of Cowboys and Indians. His most prized possession was his authentic bow and arrow, and one day he got careless and fired it straight into the air…well, you can imagine what happened."

"Oh."

Dennis hadn't counted on hunting the ghosts of little boys. That was just a bit creepy. Like Sixth Sense stuff. Creepy.

"Now Mr. Rafkin, Billy was buried over here," Kriticos pointed to the left, "Let's start there."

Suddenly reluctant to go any nearer to the grave of this kid, Dennis forced himself to act cool as he trudged over to where a plain rectangular headstone poked out of the muddy grass under a large birch tree. Its inscription said:

"Billy Michaels

1954-1963

To our beloved son

Taken from us so young"

Dennis gulped as he stared from the picture to the tombstone and back again. Suddenly the spectral viewers didn't seem like such a great idea; he wasn't sure he wanted to see the ghost of this poor little kid. Even less sure that he wanted to catch him and put him in a box.

Just then, Dennis felt something brush his sleeve. He snapped his head to elbow height, expecting little Billy Michaels to tugging at his sleeve, but saw nothing.

Sighing with relief, he shook his head. He was getting paranoid.

Then he saw it. Sticking out from the grass a few inches from his foot was the feathery shaft of an arrow.

Dennis' blood ran cold, but before he could utter a sound he was driven to his knees by pain.

*A little kid sitting in front of an old fashioned TV, watching a western movie. The same little kid in his front yard, playing cowboys and Indians with his friend. Oh wow, a real bow and arrow! Drawing back the string. I wonder if I can shoot it straight up, like they do in the movies. Twang, wow, look at it fly! Flash, climbing, tree, dead branches, dark graveyard, an ambush*

Dennis opened his eyes in time to see another arrow come flying down from above to land next to his knee. At least the kid couldn't aim right.

Letting instinct guide him, Dennis did the first thing he could think of: rolled.

He tucked and rolled out from under the tree, observing that Kriticos had already retreated and was eyeing the tree like an art critic would appraise a particularly rare painting. Following the old man's gaze and trying to ignore the steady aching in his head, Dennis saw something he had seen so many times before and yet had not really seen: a ghost. 

Billy Michaels hung by his knees in a childlike fashion from the lower branches of the birch. He was wearing a plaid shirt and brown pants. He had a feather strapped to his head, right below the shaft of an arrow that protruded from a bloody wound under his hair. And he was aiming a ghostly bow and arrow right at Dennis!

Frozen in place, Dennis knelt there on the grass. Time stood still for an instant and faintly, Dennis could hear somebody yelling.

Then, without warning, something caught him blindside and pushed him face-first down into the mud, knocking the wind out of him. His head exploded with pain and sparks of light danced in front of his eyes, accompanied by visions. For a minute he thought he had been hit and was dying. But then his senses returned and he realized that somebody was on top of him!

Gritting his teeth against the pain and fighting back the visions of a redheaded little girl getting shouted at by some random adult, he managed to get enough air into his lungs to shout, "Get off of me!"

The person's dead weight rolled off of him, and after a minute, Dennis was able to shake off enough of the pain to sit up on his elbows and glare at the person who had fallen on him. Who else? Ailis O'Shea.

"What is it with you?" he wheezed.

She was on all fours in the mud, glaring right back at him

"I'm sorry," she replied sweetly, "I don't know what came over me. What was I thinking, SAVING YOUR ASS!?"

She shouted the last part, but over her shrieking, Dennis could hear some strange chanting sound.

Without acknowledging her indignation, Dennis narrowed his eyes.

"What's that?"

Ailis stopped huffing for a moment to squint and listen.

"That? Those are the summoning spells," she said disdainfully, "You know, the ones to lure the ghost into the cube?"

She said that like it should have been obvious, which, at any other time in any other circumstance, it would have been.

"Oh, right," he said, getting up in time to see the doors of the large containment cube slide soundlessly shut on their charge, whom it seemed had just moseyed on in. Great.

Ailis rose beside him, her blue jeans and plastic jacket completely caked with mud. Looking down at herself, she winced. When she looked over at Dennis she smirked. He looked down and realized he was covered head to toe in slimy mud.

"Since it doesn't seem I'm going to get a 'thank you'," Alis snarled, "I guess I'll go get cleaned up."

"Yeah," Dennis said, knowing that was probably the wrong thing to say, but after a near-death encounter he wasn't really in the greatest of moods. "Yeah, you do that."

Now that the adrenaline and terror were draining out of his system, Dennis realized that his ankle was sore. He had probably twisted it when he had rolled out from under the tree. Shifting his weight off of it, he massaged his diaphragm with the heel of one mud-slick hand and wiped his running nose with the other, leaving a smear across his face.

'Attractive,' he thought grimly.

He limped his way over to where the crew and Kriticos had gathered around to gawk at their capture, completely oblivious to his plight. Kriticos turned, a big, boyish grin on his face, and beckoned Dennis over.

"Look, Mr. Rafkin," he said impatiently, waving Dennis over to look into to the interior of the cube, where Billy was hunched into a pout, staring out at them all. "Incredible, isn't it?"

Dennis didn't understand what was so marvelous about the kid, considering he had tried to kill him. He was more worried about getting back to the hotel and getting out of his wet, muddy clothes.

He turned back to Kriticos to find the old man peering at him.

"Are you alright, Mr. Rafkin?"

"Alright? Sure. It's not like almost getting harpooned by some ghost kid's arrow doesn't happen to me everyday or anything."

He tried but couldn't succeed at getting the bitterness out of his voice. It kinda hurt that nobody had even noticed he had almost died.

Kriticos frowned.

"The boy shot at you?"

"Almost," Ailis said, coming up behind the two men, "And if it hadn't been for me you would have had two arrowed ghosts on your hands."

Kriticos looked back and forth between the two for a minute, then at the cube, where the kid still stood with a malignant pout on his face.

"Well," Kriticos said slowly after a few moments, "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Rafkin. I knew, of course, that this spirit was a bit…violent, but I never thought that he would attempt on the lives of any of the crew. I really don't know what to say other than I'm ever so sorry, and thank you, Ms. O'Shea, for making sure I still have a psychic to help me."

He placed a hand on Ailis' shoulder and nodded to Dennis, then turned to the rest of the crew and raised his voice.

"Alright everyone, let's get this packed up and make our exit. It's getting late and we have to get the cube down to the storage facility I have arranged for it. You three-" Kriticos pointed out three men Dennis didn't know by name, "You get the cube into the truck. You," he pointed out some more, "pack up the rest of the equipment. You," he pointed to the guy called Ian, "You wait until they've finished and drive the truck back to the storage facility I've arranged for. Is that clear?"

After a few nods and 'uh huh's, Kriticos turned back to Dennis and Ailis.

"You two will return to the hotel with me and rest. We're moving out tomorrow at eight."

"What?" Dennis yelped, "Eight? In the morning? Where are we going?"

"To get the next ghost, Mr. Rafkin," Kriticos said, as if talking to a small child, "I told you we were on a very tight schedule."

With that, the old man turned and beckoned them towards the vehicle that he had driven from the hotel, a large black Lincoln. Probably a rental, Dennis thought blearily as he followed Kriticos toward it. It looked like a hearse.

When Kriticos motioned for him and Ailis to get in, Dennis balked.

"We're kinda…er…muddy." Understatement of the year. "Don't the rental people frown on that?" 

Kriticos shrugged.

"Mr. Rafkin, when you pay the rental people as much as I did for this ancient piece of junk, they don't tend to complain about the condition it comes back in."

Dennis stood there stunned for a moment, contemplating just how wealthy Kriticos was, then shrugged and levered his long legs into the backseat, cringing instinctually when his wet butt hit the seat with a soft squelching sound.

Ailis swung in on the opposite side, and Kriticos settled himself in the front passenger seat. To Dennis' surprise, there was a driver already in place. He must have been sitting there the entire time, because he wasn't wet or muddy.

Wondering if this guy came with the car or if he was one of the crew, Dennis sat upright to get as little mud on the seat as humanly possible in his position. The driver, a balding man in his late thirties, gunned the engine and made a slippery turn in the muddy grass before motoring down the hill.

Glancing over at Ailis, Dennis saw her slumped forward in he seat, also trying very hard not to get mud on the soft black upholstery. She turned to look at him and their eyes met for a second before she turned away to look out her window at the lit-up suburbs they were driving through.

Dennis turned away as well, but not before being overwhelmed with a sense of sadness that he could swear hadn't come from him. Was it his powers, in tune with her emotions? Shaking his head a bit to clear it, Dennis stared blearily out his own window, watching the drops of rain merge with each other on the glass, wondering what it must be like to be so close to something you became one. 

Dennis had learned very early that he couldn't be like the rest of the guys his age. He couldn't be intimate with women, he couldn't even touch them. Wouldn't if he could, because he didn't really tend to like women. In his experience, women were either nasty, cruel creatures that had stayed away from him or had sat muttering and laughing harshly at him, not even bothering to hide their ridicule. Or worse, there were the girls who simpered, thinking that talking to him out of pity would make things better and that they'd be heroes for just taking the time to talk to poor, fucked-up Dennis. No, women were complications he tended to avoid. 

Oh, sometimes when he woke up in the middle of the night, he would be overcome with sadness and loneliness. But in the daytime when he was sane and he had the emotional shields in place to protect him from everyday ridicule, he never had a problem. 

And besides, he thought bitterly, women never seemed all that interested in him, either. Oh, there was that girl from the library the other day, who had probably been begging for an excuse to forget her miserable life for a minute. That was different. Nobody really cared enough about him to go after him seriously. And who could blame them? He had so much emotional baggage they would be crushed by it.

A vision of Ailis popped into his mind. Stepping out of the crowd and holding out her hand to shake his. Being the only one there to notice he was about to get shot and saving him. And then he had been rude to her.

Mentally smacking himself on the head, Dennis figured he should apologize at the first opportunity. He snuck another peek at Ailis. She was still staring out the window, caught up in her own thoughts. 

'No,' he told himself firmly, 'I am NOT attracted to Ailis. Not at all. Ailis is irritating, and bitter, and catty. No, I am definitely NOT interested.'

Feeling a little better, Dennis realized they had pulled up at the hotel.

He popped the door open and squelched out, cringing. The seat was probably ruined. Reaching into his pocket, he clutched his pill bottle. He sighed and, without waiting for Ailis or Kriticos, made his way through the rain to the hotel.


	6. No Fuckin' Way

Disclaimer: Well goshdarnit, wouldn't you know? I STILL don't own anything from Thir13en Ghosts. Well, what did you expect?

A/N: Sorry this chapter has taken so long, I've been a busy girl lately. I'm also in the throes of a bout of writer's block, so bear with me. Anywho, I've been devising a way to characterize the ghosts as much as they deserve. They are, after all, a huge part of the story, and each has their own story personality, no matter how dangerous they are. So I've decided I will give each ghost their own chapter, which will serve the double purpose of allowing me to develop Dennis' relationships with his colleagues. 

PLUG: And remember, everyone, to check out Dark Castle Survivor! Chapter 2 is up, and whenever I get a chance to write without interruption I'll finish writing Chapter 3. 

Et voila, Chapter 6 of 'A Bit of a Freak'!

Chapter 6: No Fuckin' Way!

After getting back to the hotel, Dennis had slogged silently up to his room and peeled off his muddy clothing. Not knowing what else to do with them, he had given them a cursory rinse under the faucet in the bathtub to get the worst of the muck off and hung them over a chair to air dry. He had then taken a scalding shower, popped two pills, crawled into the bed he was sharing with Jarrod and fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Dennis awoke to the sound of male voices around him. Cringing, he pried his eyes open and blearily surveyed his surroundings. He was confused for a moment as to why there were people in his apartment, and for a heart-stopping moment he thought it was a ghost. Then, as if the word triggered the memory, the events of the previous twenty-four hours flooded his mind and he remembered he was in North Carolina.

Groaning, Dennis closed his eyes again tight and tried to make himself believe it had been only a dream.

"We saw you open your eyes Dennis. C'mon, you'd better get up, it's seven already."

Kenny's words resonated from somewhere near Dennis' ear. So much for dreaming.

Not bothering to lever himself into a sitting position, Dennis simply opted to roll out of the bed and onto the floor, effectively jarring himself awake enough to stand up and drag his ass into the bathroom. Same routine as every morning.

When he got out of the shower, Dennis found his three roommates hastily packing their bags to leave. Remembering that they were supposed to leave the hotel at eight, Dennis rushed into action, grabbing his still-damp clothes from the night before and throwing them into his own bag as well as the rest of his few belongings.

"So Dennis," Brock said as he settled his trench coat over his shoulders, "We hear you had a hard time with the wee ghostie last night."

This brought about a few snickers, and Dennis decided after a moment or two that the comment wasn't meant as an insult, only a joke. 

He smiled crookedly. "Yeah, the little sucker almost impaled my head."

Kenny chuckled as he struggled to zip up his bag, which was bulging with stolen hotel towels. "Heard you got your ass saved by a girl."

Dennis grinned. "I wouldn't say that, exactly. It probably wouldn't have hurt as much to get an arrow through my head."

That sobered them all up for a minute, and the room fell silent for a minute while they all considered how close Dennis had come to dying.

When they got downstairs, the rest of the group had already assembled in the lobby. Dennis spotted Ailis surrounded by her usual trio of women, one with blonde hair, one with dark brown hair and one with black hair. With Ailis' flaming red hair, they looked kinda funny all standing together. Ailis caught Dennis staring her way and gave him a look that said she still hadn't forgiven him for being a jerk last night. He remembered that he had resolved to apologize to her, but in his relief to be back in the safety of the hotel he had forgotten. 

Once again the group was transported to the airport by cab, and once there Kriticos delegated one guy to go get the tickets that had been reserved for them.

Dennis walked casually over to where Kriticos was standing once more dressed respectably in a suit, without the wacky cape.

"Hey," he said, "Where to next?"

Without turning to look at Dennis, Kriticos replied, "Atlantic City, New Jersey. Our next…find…was killed at the shore a few miles from there. We should find what we're looking for without any trouble."

Dennis nodded, and then asked a question he probably didn't want to know the answer to.

"So what's this one's story?"

This time, Kriticos turned to look at him. 

"This one is slightly more…interesting. His name was Jimmy 'The Gambler' Gambino. He was a young man that grew up in New Jersey, playing the numbers and the races. He was also affiliated with some large-scale crime organizations, and after losing one too many bets, his associates drove him to the shore and, er, collected their debt."

"Uh huh," Dennis replied, pretty sure he knew what kind of debt the mobsters had extracted, "Well, then. Sounds like fun. Hey, at least this one doesn't have a thing for primeval, deadly weapons. Right?"

Kriticos simply smiled and walked away to take the tickets from the guy who had gone to wait in line, leaving Dennis to wonder what was in store for them this time.

Once again, Kriticos had chosen Dennis to sit beside him on the short plane ride to New Jersey. Nothing was said about the previous night, and Dennis was sort of glad. He didn't want to think about it. 

Over the course of his life, Dennis had contemplated suicide many times. He had only attempted it once, and had come damn close to succeeding. He had been saved from himself that time, and after recovering had never really considered it again. Once you get that close to losing all you've got, you get a different perspective on the value of life, however trying it may be at times. No matter what he said or did, Dennis didn't want to die. Nobody really does. And being that close to getting wiped off the face of the earth was not something Dennis had ever cared to repeat.

When the plane touched down at Newark Liberty International Airport, Dennis and Kriticos performed the same ritual of disembarking from the plane and waiting for the others to meet them outside the gate. Once they were all assembled they moved to curbside, where cabs were waiting to transport them to Atlantic City, about a two-hour commute.

The trip was fairly uneventful, if one didn't count the rousing game of count-the-roadkill Dennis engaged in with Jarrrod and Brock, whom he was sharing a cab with, and the constant barrage of blaring car horns from various other motorists. Just in case you're wondering, Jersey is a frightful place to drive. The people are crazy. The final roadkill count was fifty-seven, and there was one that Dennis could have sworn used to be a pedestrian.

They entered the Atlantic City limits at around 2:00, and half an hour later they pulled up at their hotel. It wasn't one of the ritzy hotels in Atlantic, but it wasn't a rat hole either. It was seven floors high with a flashing neon sign in the parking lot proclaiming "Ed's Inn: Honeymoon Suite Available".

The group piled out of the cabs and hauled their luggage into the lobby. Once again, Dennis shared a room with Jarrod, Kenny and Brock. They had just had time to settle in when there was a knock on the door. Kenny answered it and Ailis popped her head into the room.

"Hey guys, the Old Coot says we have to be down in the lobby in ten."

"Okay," Dennis shouted. Ailis turned her head in his direction and shot him a dark look before backing out of the room.

Kenny turned to face Dennis, his eyebrows raised inquiringly.

"Don't ask," Dennis said wearily.

Once again, there was a rental van waiting outside in the hotel lot to take them all to the shore. The location was a strip of beach with a boardwalk that was closed up for the winter and a small dock leading out into the greasy, polluted Jersey water. There was a semi truck waiting with all their equipment, including another glass cube.

Kriticos was waiting on the dock when the crew got there, and once the old man caught sight of Dennis he beckoned him over. 

Suddenly Dennis was overcome with nerves. No matter what Kriticos said, Dennis would never get over his feeling that this job was not the greatest idea for his continued good health. He had almost died the previous night. And hadn't the old man said something about the ghosts they were hunting being dangerous? Dennis had been too dazed at the offer of $600,000 to pay much attention to what Kriticos had been saying. Dennis had been duped and he knew it, but that didn't exactly account for the feeling of dread he got in his stomach whenever he thought of what they were doing.

He jumped when Kenny came up behind him.

"Good luck, Rafkin," the blonde man said grimly, "Try not to get yourself in trouble this time, will ya?"

Dennis gave the younger man a halfhearted smile, slipped on his ghost glasses, and without a word let his long legs lead him to the end of the dock, where Kriticos was waiting for him, once again looking excited as a kid in a candy store.

"Alright," Dennis wanted to know, "What do I do this time?"

"Now," Kriticos said, "You find us a spirit."

"Okay," Dennis said, feeling a bit awkward, "Do you have a picture for me again?"

"Ah, yes, of course."

Dennis was handed a sheet of the same photocopy paper as last time, and this time it was emblazoned with a picture of a man with no legs and a grizzled-looking head. Held under his arm. The ghost was headless.

Dennis felt his stomach plummet.

"Uh," he said, trying not to listen to the voice in his head screaming BAD IDEA, "This guy has no head or legs."

"That's right. That's why he's nicknamed the Torso. Unfortunately, we need more than his torso. We need all of him, including his legs and his head. On the up side, I don't believe you need to worry about primeval weapons."

Kriticos seemed like he was having a good time. Just swell, because Dennis felt like he was going to be sick.

"You want me to find pieces of this guy. You want me to use my powers to find some dead guy who was hacked into pieces?!"

"Yes."

Dennis stood stunned for a minute. The old guy was laughing! He thought this was funny!

"You've got to be kidding me," he said, "You have GOT to be shittin' me. There's no way I'm doing this. No fuckin' way!"

Kriticos raised a white eyebrow in Dennis' direction.

"Does that mean you're backing out, Mr. Rafkin?"

Dennis gritted his teeth to keep himself from saying yes. He didn't want to be too hasty about this. He hated to admit it, but he really, REALLY wanted that money. Why else would he have taken this stupid job?

Still grinding his teeth, Dennis choked out the word, "No."

Kriticos nodded. He hadn't believed for a second that Dennis would back out.

"Fine then," he said, "Now find our ghost, Mr. Rafkin. All of him."

And with that, Kriticos walked away, leaving Dennis standing alone on the dock. 

"It's Dennis," he muttered at the old man's back before turning back to the task at hand.

He peered into the dark water and cringed. Somewhere down there were the remains of some poor gambler who got hacked into pieces by some angry mobsters. Lovely.

Trying not to think about it, Dennis took a deep breath and turned his attention to the piece of paper he still held in his hands.

*Dark, smoke-filled room. Dice. Cards. Cigarettes and cheap beer. Nervous. Lost again today. I'm in big trouble now. Can't let 'em find me. Doors opening, panic. Oh, shit. Shouting. Rough hands pulling him out of the bar, pain, blackness, shaft of light, pain, excruciating pain. Water. The shore. Sand, moonlight, water, darkness.*

Dennis came back to himself in a cold sweat. He had fallen to his knees on the hard planks of the dock, and his hands were shaking so badly the paper fluttered out of them, only to get caught in a gust of wind and land in the water a few feet away.

"Shit," Dennis whispered, taking off his glasses to scrub his eyes with his hands. Jimmy Gambino hadn't had a pleasant death. Not pleasant at all. The worst part had been the fear, the dread. The knowledge that his deeds would come back to haunt him.

Dennis took a few deep breaths and reached over the dock to grab the paper, which was floating on the still water a few feet away.

As Dennis leaned over, his arm extended in front of him, he noticed something kinda shiny in the water. Frowning, he tried to get a better look at what it was. It looked like…cling wrap or something. It was floating just under the surface, where the paper floated serenely.

Grabbing up the paper, Dennis reached in again to get the plastic. It really was disgusting when people littered like that…

His hand came in contact with the plastic wrap, and the stab of adrenaline in his gut told him immediately that something was wrong. Moving automatically in his horror, Dennis lifted his hand out of the water – and with it came the piece of plastic wrap – which happened to be wrapped around a head. Nothing else. Just a head.

Frozen in terror, Dennis could only stare, wide eyed and gaping, as the head turned to face him, sneering. The eyes of the ghost were filled with hatred and something else…violence.

Before Dennis could react, he heard a splash. Unwilling to take his gaze off the eyes of Jimmy Gambino, Dennis quickly glanced down – and started as a scabbed, rotten hand clamped down on his arm. The arm was attached to a torso and another arm, which was paddling in the water. With the contact, Dennis' head exploded with pain. He screamed and felt the dock slide out from under him as he listed to the side, into the water.

Galvanized now by the icy cold water and unable to breathe, Dennis scrambled to release the ghost's hold on him, still screaming breathlessly and swooning from the continued pain. But Jimmy wasn't letting go. He continued to tug at Dennis' arm until he could barely keep his head above water.

Blinded by the pain and snatches of visions clawing at his sanity as well as lack of air in his freezing lungs, Dennis blacked out as his head slid under the surface of the icy November Atlantic.

Dazed and panicked, Dennis kicked out one last time with all his might, and his foot came in contact with something. He heard a scream from somewhere near him, and realized his arm was free. How he knew this with his entire body numb from the cold he didn't know, but he took the chance and tried to kick toward the surface. Trouble was, his muscles were frozen and tight from the pain and didn't seem to want to work properly.

He could no longer see, and he was finding it very hard to think, let alone move. Still he struggled toward the direction he identified as 'up', his lungs burning from the amount of salt water he had gulped into them. He could hear, as if from far away, a mechanical whirring noise.

Suddenly, he felt his head break the surface. Voices shouted around him, no longer muted by the water. His vision returned slowly to normal, and he saw a sea of faces staring down at him. He recognized none of them, and closed his eyes again. They stung from the salt water, and his head pounded mercilessly.

Suddenly, he seized up and coughed, choking on the water in his lungs. He heaved, and water shot from his mouth. Lots of water. More water than he would have thought he could hold. 

When he had stopped coughing, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and took several deep breaths of cold night air. The voices were still chattering around him.

"Is he okay?"

"What happened?"

"Dennis, can you hear me?"

"He was down there for a while…"

"Oh, for chrissake you idiots, give him some space!"

Dennis finally recognized that bossy, authoritative female voice. It was, of course, Ailis.

Groaning, Dennis opened his eyes. The light stung, but it was better than it had been.

"Where is he?" he croaked out.

The sea of faces turned in the direction of the beach. Dennis sat up to look and saw the ghost dragging itself up the sand by one arm, carrying its head and legs under the other, toward the glass cube on the shore.

"As soon as you started screaming, we figured you had found him," Jarrod explained, "So we started up the spells. He fought them for a while; it looked like he really wanted to get you first."

Whoopee.

"He finally gave up, I guess," Brock cut in, "but you were still under. We figured you had drowned, and none of us knew how to get you out without touching you. Then Tom here," Kenny jerked his thumb at a short man in his early thirties that Dennis recognized as Tom, "thought that maybe we could use one of those small cranes we brought the cube in with. So we hoisted you out with that."

Dennis couldn't think of what to say. He finally settled on "Jesus fucking Christ."

Then he realized someone was missing.

"Where's Kriticos?" he asked.

"Right here," Kriticos said, coming up the dock with a big smile on his face, "You've done it again, Mr. Rafkin. We've got him, thanks to you. Now I believe it's time we headed out."

The group parted to let Kriticos leave, and Dennis heard Ailis mutter, "He didn't do anything. We caught the damn thing; Rafkin just went for a swim."

Too exhausted to be infuriated, Dennis cut his eyes to Ailis, who was staring with narrowed eyes at Kriticos as he approached. She caught his eyes and blushed, realizing that he had heard her.

Getting to his feet, Dennis swayed, but managed to stay upright. He was starting to shiver now that the shock was wearing off.

"Here."

Dennis turned to see Ailis holding out her own large fleece coat, her face apologetic. A peace offering.

Dennis took the coat without taking his eyes off hers.

As the group started to head toward the beach to pack up the equipment, Dennis moved closer to Ailis and leaned toward her.

"Are we even now?" he muttered.

She took a step back and surveyed him for a minute before grinning and nodding once.

"Truce?" she asked.

He grinned back, his teeth still chattering. "Truce."


	7. Friends and Betrayals

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the rights to Thir13en Ghosts. You should know that by now!

A/N: Well everybody, thanks for all your reviews and sorry this has taken so long. Like the dumbass that I am, I forgot to save half of my work on this chapter and it got deleted, leaving me to start the whole thing over. So you're getting the slightly edited version of the original. I'm beating myself up over this, because I had it perfect. But, c'est la vie. Life goes on. 

Oh, and Rhiannon, I did in fact notice that. It comes into play later in the story. I'm glad you noticed! ;)

Chapter 7: Friends and Betrayals

*Excited, going to the prom, can't wait, beautiful dress, I've got the hottest guy in the class, anticipation, dancing, lights, noise, I'll be right back baby, I gotta get some air…hands grabbing, warm lips, moaning, he'll never know, screaming, door opening, hands grabbing at her, I'm sorry baby, I don't know what I was thinking! Shut up bitch! Undoing his tie, pinning her down, Baby, you're hurting me. Why? Why did you betray me you stupid whore? Pain, it hurts, WHY? Dancing lights, blacking out, darkness*

Dennis sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. The headache that had been plaguing him ever since he had stepped onto the old football field reached a sharp pitch, but it subsided after a few moments and he stood up in the soft grass, still damp from the afternoon's rain. Floodlights illuminated the field, but beyond that there was pitch darkness.

When he had stepped onto the field and felt the pain, he had taken out his pill bottle, but one look from Cyrus reminded him that it was unacceptable to partake of his drugs on the job, lest he lose track of their target.

But the pain wasn't the worst part. The ghost's name was Susan LeGrow, nicknamed the Bound Woman. Her boyfriend had caught her cheating on him at their senior prom, and the authorities had found her body a week later, strangled and buried under the school football field. That had been 1987. And Susan was still there. Besides the pain in his head, Dennis could feel her bitter ire pulsing in his chest, his bones. It made him edgy.

The rest of the crew must have felt it to some degree too, because whether consciously or not, they had all formed a tight circle around the glass containment cube, all facing outwards and squinting into the shadows surrounding their ring of light.

Dennis was on his own though, clutching in his hand a page full of Latin scrawling and yet another picture, this time of a beautiful young woman that was bound and choked.

Cyrus was also on his own, pacing the perimeter of their circle of light. He showed not a trace of the edginess the others felt, only a burning impatience. He looked over at Dennis and raised his eyebrows. Dennis shrugged, darting glances around.

On the two-day road trip from Jersey to this sleepy little town in Wisconsin, Cyrus had once again insisted that Dennis ride with him. The two had talked a lot, about Dennis' powers and his life, about Cyrus' experiences with ghosts, and about life in general. It was strange to finally talk to someone who accepted him, who didn't think he was sick or crazy. He was in fact an asset, as Cyrus constantly kept reminding him. He was crucial to the timely capture of these ghosts. In their time together, Dennis had stopped thinking of Cyrus as his employer and had started thinking of him as a friend. Cyrus made him feel important, as if he were a real person in a real world that just couldn't see what he could see. Dennis had started to wonder if this is what it was like to have a real friend. And he also wondered how things would have turned out differently had he had someone like Cyrus around when he was younger.

Lost in his own thoughts, Dennis failed to notice the presence behind him until the pain in his head flared sharply and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Terror iced his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Dennis closed his eyes and reopened them, knowing what he would find behind him. He spun around slowly, but when he finally faced the opposite direction, there was nothing there. Mocking laughter drifted to him from somewhere, he couldn't tell where. 

"Find anything?" 

The voice came from right behind him, making him jump about a foot in the air.

"Shit, Cyrus," he wheezed, "You scared the hell outta me!"

"My apologies," Cyrus said smoothly, looking around, "Nothing yet?"

"I think she's playing with me," Dennis whined, still darting nervous glances all around him.

He could still hear her laughing. It was a girly, high pitched giggle. It made every small hair on his body stand on end, made his flesh crawl. And strangely, it made him angry. It was an irritating sound.

"C'mon," he muttered, "You stupid little slut, show yourself."

Wrong thing to say. He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

The laughter stopped abruptly.

Then, without warning, the pain in Dennis' head flared sharply, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the grass again. He looked up in time to see a blurred shape flying over him, arms outstretched like claws before her, aiming at where he had been standing only seconds ago.

Rolling to his feet on pure instinct, Dennis dimly registered that Cyrus was running for the cube, shouting to the others to start up the spells. Dennis, on the other hand, had other things to worry about.

Susan LeGrow stared at him out of ghostly eyes, her bloodless lips curled into a snarl. She lunged at him again, and this time Dennis ducked out of the way to avoid the onslaught of pain that would paralyze him if she came too close. 

From across the field, the spells started playing on the giant speakers. The haunting, echoing words flowed over Dennis like snakes, slithering around and inside him. It was the first time he had noticed their strange power, what with being shaken to the core the first time and underwater the last.

Susan, however, seemed completely unaffected by the spells' powerful allure. She stopped again and turned slowly toward him, a depraved smile on her once-pretty face. Then she disappeared.

Dennis froze, once again darting looks all around him. The sensation of being watched combined with the chilling effect of the chanted spells to send a shiver down his spine.

"Rafkin," came a shout from halfway down the field. Kenny stepped away from the knot of people near the cube to get his attention, "What's the holdup?"

"She's gone again," Dennis said, making his way toward the clump of people clustered around the cube, "She was trying her best to rip my face off for a while, and then she dissa-holy SHIT!"

Susan suddenly appeared between him and Kenny, blocking his view of the blonde man. Dennis yelped as she swooped down on him, his mind numbing with blurred visions and pain. He heard her scream and felt her nails swipe his face.

Moaning, Dennis rolled into fetal position, his throbbing forehead touching the soft, cool grass and his arms covering his neck. Sharp nails continued to scrape at him and her cold fists pummeled him in indignant rage. She wasn't really strong, but what she lacked in body weight she made up for in blind fury.

As if from far away, he heard her screaming at him: "I'm not a slut. I'm not! How dare you! You don't know me, you don't care…" Dennis heard a distant sob and an agonized wail.

"I loved you, I love you, I'm sorry, why didn't you listen to me, I said I was sorry but you wouldn't listen!"

Linked as Dennis was to the ghostly girl's strong emotions, he recognized that she was in terrible pain, reliving the night of her death with regret and sorrow. She was, Dennis realized, just like any other teenager. She made mistakes and needed the chance to make up for them. But Susan wasn't given the chance. Her guilt still clawed away at her like she clawed at Dennis now, venting her emotions on anything male she could find.

Gritting his teeth and blinking away the blood that had seeped into his eyes from the slashes on his face, Dennis found his voice.

"Susan!" he yelled, trying to get her attention, not even sure if she could hear him, "Susan, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't realize…I had no right to judge you. One mistake shouldn't have to ruin, or end, your life. You made a bad choice, but who doesn't? I had no right. I'm sorry!"

Dennis didn't actually expect this to work. The continued pain in his head obscured the biting sting of her sharp nails digging into his back and arms. His head swam with visions, both hers and his own, and he wasn't actually quite sure of what he had said.

But by some miracle, it actually worked. The pain in his head receded slowly, leaving him very aware of the blood that ran down his face, his arms and his back. The back of his shirt was a mess of torn fabric and blood. He was shaking and gasping for air, as if he had just been submerged in the ocean again.

Silence hung in the air, and it took him a minute to realize what it meant: the spells had been turned off.

Dennis raised his head and looked toward the cube. Susan was inside, throwing herself at the closed doors in a futile effort to escape. Her eyes caught his and she snarled, looking a lot like some feral night animal. Her small hands pounded on the glass and he saw her lips moving, shouting something at him. Catching a small aftershock of her emotions, now dulled by the ectobar glass, he knew that she felt betrayed by him somehow. Which made sense. His shouting at her had obviously caused her to let down her guard enough for the summoning spells to take effect, drawing her into the cube.

Dennis looked down, away from the cube as an inexplicable wave of guilt swept him up. He couldn't help but feel bad for the kid, even though Cyrus had told him that a ghost had no real emotions, just a shadow of what their dying selves felt. Looking into Susan LeGrow's sorrowful, angry gaze somehow made him doubt that assurance.

The ground around him vibrated with the sound of running feet, and all at once he was surrounded by people. He automatically cringed from them, curling into a ball again to escape their voices. He suddenly felt as if he needed to be left alone.

He heard his name being called about a dozen times, then suddenly one sounded right in his ear.

"DENNIS!" Ailis shouted in his ear, "You're bleeding. A lot. If you don't get up this instant and get your skinny little ass over where I can look at those cuts, I swear I'll help you up."

Dennis cringed, knowing exactly what she meant. She would have no qualms about touching him to make him move. 

"Everybody back off," he mumbled, and Ailis repeated his words louder for the benefit of the rest of the group. Biting his lip, Dennis ignored the sticky feel of the drying blood on his arms and heaved himself into a standing position. Now that he was paying attention, the cuts and bruises on his back really hurt. And as the destruction was immersed in the full glare of the floodlights, he heard Ailis stifle a gasp.

He turned his throbbing head slowly to look at her and caught her as she tried to conceal her shock and worry under a mask of her usual stubbornness. 

"Is it bad?" he croaked, already feeling in his pocket for his painkillers.

She hesitated, then nodded, probably not trusting her voice.

Dennis finally found his pill bottle and, cringing as some of the cuts on his arm reopened, popped three dry.

He gazed at the sea of faces around him. Cyrus was nowhere in sight. He was probably just checking the cube to make sure nothing was wrong before he came to help Dennis.

"C'mon," Ailis said softly, waving her arm toward the pile of gear at one end of the field, "I'll take a look at those."

Dennis looked down his nose at her.

"Last time I checked, you weren't a doctor."

Her eyes flashed dangerously.

"I may not be a doctor, Rafkin, but I still know what to do for scrapes and bruises. And unless you have eyes in the back of your head, you can't see your own back. Now would you rather I examined you, or one of them?"

She nodded toward where most of the other crew members looked over at them, obviously still scared after what they had just seen occur. He hated to admit it, but Ailis was right. She definitely seemed the calmest of them.

Not acknowledging her, Dennis turned and stalked away toward the pile of gear, leaving her to jog to keep up with his long-legged stride.

"You know," she fumed from a step behind him, "You can be really childish sometimes."

Now normally, he wouldn't have let that get to him. But at the time, with his tensions running high and his nerves at their end, he just didn't feel like putting up with her.

He stopped so suddenly she overshot him and had to take a step back to see him properly.

"I'm childish," he stated blandly, "Right. Who's the one getting all uppity because she feels, what, like she has some duty to take care of me? In case you haven't already figured this out, my lifestyle doesn't generally include a lot of company. I'm a big boy and I can take care of myself. You, on the other hand, are obviously used to being with a group of people you can boss around and lord over to make yourself feel superior. That's just like a woman."

"EXCUSE me?" she shrieked, all eyes now turning in their direction. Dennis knew he would regret opening his mouth very soon, but right now he was in a lot of pain and really didn't feel like putting up with Ailis' mother hen bullshit.

"Excuse me?" Ailis repeated, her eyes bugging out. She really did look like a big puffed out chicken, squawking her little red head off.

"That is the single most sexist remark I have ever heard," she hissed. She had also noticed everyone turn to stare at them, and had the presence of wit to keep quiet. Surprisingly, this calmed Dennis down a bit. He took a deep breath and let it out with an explosive huff. The wounds in his back continued to burn, and his headache wasn't getting any better despite the meds he had just taken.

"Okay, whatever," he said, "Can we just go and at least get the blood off of me? It's starting to itch."

Right away, the ruffled look faded from Ailis' face. She grew serious again and nodded as she remembered the reason they were bickering in the first place.

They trudged the rest of the way in silence, and when they got to the pile of gear Ailis started riffling around, presumably looking for a first-aid kit.

She finally pulled out a white box and set it on the ground, then busily applied some thin, blue-ish liquid to a cotton swab. Careful not to touch his fingers, she handed it to him and instructed him to clean the cuts on his arms with it.

With a silent nod, Dennis pressed the liquid onto one of the fingernail marks on his upper arm. He cringed at the stinging sensation, but wiped away at the dried blood anyway. The cuts didn't look too deep, and what he had thought were long scratches just turned out to be small punctures from which the blood had smeared.

Concentrating on his arm, he jumped when he felt something jab his back.

"Whhaa!" he squeaked, turning to face his assailant.

It was Ailis, armed with a pair of long tweezers. She had a look of utter exasperation on her face.

"Do you want shreds of your shirt in your back, or do you want me to get them out?" she asked sardonically.

Looking with dread upon the lethal-looking tweezers, Dennis scrunched his eyes closed until he saw stars, then opened them again.

"Okay," he sighed, resigned, "But don't touch me."

With that he turned around and continued to cleanse his arm. For a few minutes the pair worked silently, Dennis wiping away at his arm and Ailis picking surprisingly gently at the shredded bits of flannel shirt in his back. Around them, the rest of the crew packed up their gear and loaded the cube into the large truck that awaited its ghostly cargo.

Ailis was the first to break the silence.

"Why you?" she asked quietly, done with the fabric and using the tweezers to apply the blue antiseptic to the wounds on his back.

"Why me what?" Dennis replied just as quietly.

"Why do they always come after you?" she specified.

It took Dennis a minute to understand what she was saying.

"I guess I'm just always in the way," he mused, "I mean, I must've been the first one the kid saw and so he shot at me. And I was stupid enough to lean out over the water so the headless guy could get me. And I…" he trailed off, wondering if he should continue.

"And you…?"

"Well, this last one…I kinda called her a slut."

A pause, then: "Good job, Rafkin. Only you could figure out how to piss off a ghost to the point where she tries to claw you to death. Are you like that with all women?"

Dennis didn't know why the blush crept into his face, but it did. Suddenly the frigid November air felt way to warm. Luckily he was saved from answering when a crunching sound was heard from behind him.

"Mr. Rafkin, are you alright?"

Not turning around, Dennis nodded.

"Yeah Cyrus, I'm just fine. It was a lot of fun, actually. I decided it would be a kick to grab the bitch's arm and use her nails to scratch the shit outta my back."

Gritting his teeth, Dennis took this opportunity to scold himself inwardly for letting his temper get the better of him. The old man had told him on the long drive here that the key to controlling his powers might be to keep control of his temper and sarcastic nature.

"I see," Cyrus replied, taking everything in with a brief look, "Now that that's settled, we can head out."

Dennis didn't turn around to see Cyrus leave, only nodded again and listened to the old man's footsteps die away.

Ailis riffled through the first aid kit for a minute and straightened, handing him a roll of gauze.

"Here," she said, closing the kit and putting it back in the bag it had come from, "Wrap that around yourself a few times. None of them are very deep, and the bleeding's pretty much stopped, but they're still fresh."

"Yes mother," Dennis grumped, rolling the bandaging around his torso. The rest of the group was piling into the vans that would take them back to their hotel. Dennis quickly ripped off the end of the gauze and tucked it in, freezing without his shirt.

Ailis offered him her coat again, but he refused this time.

"I'll be okay," he said, trying to control the chattering in his teeth.

She looked at him slant-eyed for a few moments before making a scoffing sound and stalking away, muttering something about overdoses of testosterone.

By the time they got back to the hotel, Dennis was shivering so hard he could barely sit up. Following the rest of the group, he walked stiffly up the concrete steps and through the glass doors to the lobby, then took the elevator to his room.

His usual roommates, Kenny Jarrod and Brock, were already there when he arrived.

Brock looked up from digging in his suitcase when Dennis walked in.

"Wow, Rafkin," he said, "You look like shit."

Dennis smiled weakly, still trembling violently. Kenny was in the shower and Jarrod was sitting in the small room's single chair, prying off the black combat boots he was wearing.

"You'd l-look like shit too," Dennis chattered, "If you had been attacked by and irate g-ghost and then poked and p-prodded by Ailis O'Shea for half an hour."

This earned a snort from Jarrod and a smile from Brock.

"Oh, c'mon," the shorter man said as he finally extracted the shirt he had been looking for, "You were enjoying it."

"Ahhh…" Dennis started to object, then gave up, shaking his head. He still had to get used to the idea that, unlike most people, these men weren't into being overly sensitive about his gift. Quite the contrary, they tended to forget about its effects. He had never thought he would be around such a group, and frankly couldn't believe it sometimes. It was the closest he had ever been to feeling normal. And Cyrus had promised Dennis that he would try to find out a way for Dennis to control his gift, curse, whatever it was.

Despite the cold that had seeped into his bones, Dennis suddenly felt a whole lot warmer.

He grinned, the grin of a little kid who was being teased about flirting with a girl for the first time.

"Yeah, okay, so I was enjoying it," he admitted, surprised to find that it was actually true.

Suddenly there came a chuckle from the direction of the bed. Jarrod sat up from where he had flopped over and shook his head at Dennis.

"Only you, man," he said, "Only you could manage to be attracted to a woman while she's picking at your eviscerated back with a big-ass pair of tweezers."

Dennis blinked, wondering if he should take offense to that, until he realized Jarrod was shaking with laughter. Behind him, Brock was making snorting noises to keep from laughing.

Surprising himself, Dennis let out a bark of laughter. He couldn't help it. Maybe it was the leftover adrenaline from the attack, or the fact that what Jarrod had just said was true, and oddly amusing.

"Let's not forget said evisceration was done by a ghost, of all things," Dennis added, "Most people would think I'm nuts."

It was true, he thought as Brock chuckled appreciatively from behind him, most people would never believe what he had just been through. And here were two people that not only believed him but had seen it happen, and were still able to laugh about it.

At that moment, Kenny came out of the bathroom, wearing blue boxer shorts and a raised eyebrow.

"What're you fuckin' weirdoes laughing at?" he asked in a mock-serious tone.

That comment drove it home. All three of them burst out laughing.

Raising the other eyebrow, Kenny shook his head and crossed to his suitcase, leaving the others to laugh themselves out.

Dennis couldn't remember what exactly had been so funny, but he found himself doubled up with laughter. Maybe it was adrenaline, or relief, or the realization that here, on this bizarre mission to capture ghosts, he had made the closest he had ever come to real friends.


	8. Notice of Absence

My Dear Readers,

I'm so sorry I've been unable to write lately. You should all know that all of my stories are one of my topmost priorities, but unfortunately school comes before them. Exams and other year-end obligations are upon me, and I barely have enough time to myself to eat and sleep, necessities that also come in a bit higher on my list than writing. Being cut off from my writing is actually making me very sad, and you can be assured that as soon as all this madness in my life is over I'll be writing a chapter every few days. Until then!

Sincerest Wishes,

Hekasha


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